Breathing
by Sydney Real
Summary: A mission gone wrong puts down a path for lies and mistakes that can’t be taken back.


**Title:** Breathing

**Author: **Sydney Real

**E-mail:** ADA722@aol.com

**Summary:** A mission gone wrong puts down a path for lies and mistakes that can't be taken back.

**Spoilers:** 1st season, but nothing really specific… well… Syd's a double agent. Oh! Sorry I spoiled that…

**Rating:** R

**Category:** Adventure/Angst/a little S/V

**Notes:** No one in this fic belongs to me, except the bad guys with the funny names. Suing me would be extremely painful, considering I'm a just a student, trying to plunge my way through daily classes to maybe get one of those things called a job someday. Much much thanks to Lauren, my beta, who I'm sure could have just as easily been sleeping in math than rereading this story.

"Maybe I will tell you all about it

when I'm in the mood to lose my way with words."

- John Mayer

"Breathing"

I can't breathe.

My heart is racing in my chest, my body already uncomfortably warm under my blue dress suit. I chose this outfit this morning carefully, remembering that it is one of my better-looking suits. I have this weird affliction for needing to look as good as I can every day before I go to work. I guess none of this makes a difference either way, but I figure the day all of this goes down, I'll be able to walk out in one of those dramatic scenes like they have in the movies, my long brown hair flowing behind me in a light haze of wind as handcuffs are slapped on the hands of my bosses.

I'll smile then. But now, I can hardly breathe.

I should really be used to this by now. I normally don't let my guard down, but I find that this is the one time a day where I can't help myself. I am, of course, about to continue my near daily routine of entering a workplace that I hate and seeing so many innocent (and plenty of guilty) faces that I carry the pain for every day. Just how I can't imagine the day my partner will walk towards this ugly building to discover that his whole career has been a lie, that he's almost died for no one, no reason, not his country.

Not to mention that Credit Dauphine is just one incredibly horrible looking building. Just looking at it as I drive up, I know that not a single good thing could occur behind those doors. The place just looks foreboding. No wonder my friends don't like me working here. I don't like me working here.

"Morning, Sydney."

My heart rate steadies as I force myself to act completely normal. I smile, wonderfully pleased with how well I can do that upon seeing this hideous, deceiving face before me.

"Good Morning, Sloane."

"Go on in and take a seat," he motions to the odd clear door that leads to our regular meeting place. "I have a very important mission for you. This will take some time."

I nod and enter the room. Even though I'm a regular to this room, I am surprised every time at how cold it is inside. My arms involuntarily shudder as I take a seat in one of the giant black leather chairs. A guy I don't recognize is next to me, my father across the table. Marshall is missing, I notice immediately, and I wonder what this big mission is. Sloane more than never reveals anything about a mission like that outside of this room. In fact, he never seems to give an opinion on any thing in any way.

My thoughts cut off as he enters the room. The temperature rises drastically, or at least it feels like it does. I resist a grin as I remind myself that I am truly in hell.

"Hope you all had a nice weekend; let's get to work," Sloane hits the remote control roughly and all of our computer screens jump to life before our eyes, ready to dance a tune that I'm more than sick of hearing. "This man is Gregor Kristenger. He is ranked as a captain in a German chaos group known as Die Antwort, which means–"

"The Answer?" I chime in. The second the word 'chaos' had entered the conversation, I flashed back to watching "Get Smart" with my best friends in elementary school. My dad hated that show. I'm not surprised.

"Yes. They've been on the map ever since their heavy artillery contribution during World War II. We thought they had dropped off the scene, but they are apparently after a missing section of pages from one of Rambaldi's books." Sloane clicks the remote again, and an ancient-looking book, only about 20 pages or so thick, fills the screen. This picture, unlike what Sloane usually has prepared, is unusually pixilated, blurry and hard to see. "This is the last time this book was seen. This picture was taken circa 1945. We have received a heads up on the fact that the Germans are searching for the missing pages, which," he clicks the remote again, and the pages appear on the screen, a perfectly clear image, "are in our possession, and have been since the early '60s. Sydney, your mission is to retrieve the book from the Germans and match up our missing pages to it. We have reason to believe that once the missing pages are replaced, a series of coordinates will appear, leading us to another piece of the Rambaldi puzzle. You will be accompanied by Agent Keller," he points to the fore-mentioned nameless man to my left. I smile and shake his hand. He looks like Tom Selleck from "Magnum P.I." with the exact same thick mustache. He also omits a smell I can't quite place, but after a few deep breaths, I notice that I really don't want to associate anything of myself with his scent anymore.

Slone takes a long breathe. "Dixon, as you know, is on vacation with his wife and kids in…" he lets his words trail off, like he is either annoyed by the fact that Dixon is on vacation, that he has a wife and kids, or that he is on a vacation with those wife and kids. "… Disney World."

Okay. All of those, or he hates Disney World.

I nod at Sloane, "When do I leave?"

I wonder if Walt Disney was evil.

"Tomorrow morning. Your plane leaves at noon."

Maybe Disney World is a covert operation to steal the minds of young children through the penciled drawings of Mickey and his friends.

"You will attend a party at the house of a friend of Kristenger's. Your alias is Katarina Schoeler; Agent Keller is your husband, under the alias Christian Schoeler. You will receive the rest of your travel information later in the day."

Maybe I'm being too hard on Walt Disney. Mickey never did anything to me.

I smile. So does Sloane. My skin crawls.

"Good luck, Agent Bristow."

I hope he will blow up upon entering his office. No, wait. That could hurt the people with work desks close to him. Maybe he'll walk down the hall and forget to turn and walk straight through the windowpane and fall several stories to his painful death. Yes. That would be much better.

"Thanks." I look at my dad. He has his normal grin on his face, and I can only conclude that he is either thinking the exact same things I am or he has a few funny ideas for Sloane's demise of his own.

We stare at each other for a brief moment before I leave the room. The temperature is feels normal, and I once again let my heart race. I grab my things and leave as quickly as I can.

This place gives me the creeps.

***

There is a small hot dog stand in a park that's about a mile or two from my place. When I go jogging, I like to go by it, just to see the small kids screaming and laughing and running around on the playground. Sometimes I linger a few extra seconds at the hot dog stand to let my eyes study the kids. I wonder if things had been any different, if maybe I would have a kid right now. If maybe I would be a mother.

"Yeah, um, I'll have a hot dog and a bottle of water." Familiar voice. I fight the grin that is rising on my face and I slow down how quickly I am putting condiments on my meal.

"That's five dollars."

"Five?" He is exasperated, his normal tone of voice jumping a bit at the price. "Wow, um, here. Five dollars."

The fat guy behind the stand blinks. "Condiments are over there. Have a nice day."

There is a presence next to me now; I can feel his body heat gathering over me. He is in one of his suits, a heavy black with a crisp white shirt on underneath. I'm positive of my next guess, but I ponder it anyway: if he is wearing those suspenders with his gun holster on it. I always loved those so much more than the one that goes on the belt. It did wonders for the guys on "Dragnet" and they were like fifty years old.

"What's my counter mission?"

He scoops out a hunk of onions and lays them with precision on his hot dog. "To be quite honest, this is a huge mission. I don't know if you're aware of this, but Die Antwort is a huge part of the European block that the CIA has been trying to knock down ever since the war. Americans are sure that these kinds of forces don't exist, but the fact is, we haven't been able to knock them down at all since they started up over fifty years ago." He is now spreading lines of ketchup on the dog. "Obtaining this piece of information would greatly benefit the CIA, because at this point, we don't have the book or the missing pages. You're our link to put them together. We will, of course, give you a device that will allow you to relay the coordinates to us as you receive them."

"How can I give them to you without Agent Keller noticing?" By this point, I have put so many things on my hot dog that it's hard to look at without wanting to lose my appetite. I am trying too hard to focus on this case, as well as avoiding the intoxicating way my handler smells, standing so close to me that it's almost painful not to reach out and touch him in some way.

"That's the interesting part. SD-6 is obviously going to supply you with copies of the information in the book; I highly doubt they'd risk letting you go over with the actual book itself. Here," he slides something hidden under a napkin to me. There is relish on the napkin. He is now spreading disgustingly great amounts of mayonnaise on his hot dog.

I cringe. "What's this?"

"A chip for you to hide somewhere on your body. We're going to be heading over to Germany to keep an eye on things; this has a remote in it that will allow us to hear everything you say."

"The CIA is going to Germany?" This surprises me. With every extra bit of information, this case seems to be bigger than I thought it was.

"Yeah, um, I'll be there too." I ignore the piece of my brain that is celebrating. It's not like I'll be able to see him there anyway. 

"So why does this case seem bigger than I think it is?"

"Because if we can get a hold of whatever Rambaldi hid at those coordinates, we'll be able to effectively shoot apart any chance Die Antwort has at obtaining any information. Their group has faded over the past couple of decades, and piecing together the missing sections of the book is the only thing they really have left to deal with. Without it, they are no longer a force. And if what's hidden is what we think it is, we might be able to take a giant chunk out of SD-6. And I mean," he hesitates for emphasis, "this is huge, Sydney. Really big."

"What do you think is hidden there?"

He sighs heavily, going for more mayonnaise. "Devlin won't tell me. In fact, no one knows but the higher ups. And it's weird."

"Why?"

"Because he usually doesn't leave me in the dark about this. And because Devlin's coming to Germany too." He seems disappointed about this. His shoulders slump a little, and I notice him going back for a third round of mayonnaise.

"You look upset." I remind myself that I haven't looked into his eyes once yet during this meeting. I hate when we meet in places where we can't look at each other. It makes all of this, like me trying to be friendly, so hard.

"No," he quickly denies. "I just feel like Devlin's not placing much trust in me. Like maybe he feels that I'm not…" he lets his voice fall again.

"Not what?"

It is silent between us for a moment. He turns and looks directly at me. The sun shines heavily on his features, and I see for the first time today that he has stress lines embedded in his forehead and that there seem to be black circles under his tired green eyes. His gaze is short and direct.

I swear my heart just stopped.

"Not handling you correctly."

He blinks, and then his eyes are gone, lost into the creamy white world that has become his mayonnaise-covered hot dog.

I don't know what to say. "What do you mean?"

He lets out another deep breath, and I notice that his back limps gently under the release of air. "Devlin doesn't exactly rouse confidence in his agents. I guess I'm just letting that get to me. I mean, after all of the times I was sure you were in danger, that I needed to do something–"

I reach over him to grab the spoon from the onion bowl, purposely letting my hand graze across his and a little of my weight press into his side. I swear I feel him shiver underneath me, and instead of ignoring it like I do so many other times, I press into him harder until I hear him suck in a sharp breath of air.

"You're perfect, Vaughn. I couldn't have prayed for someone better." Maybe my words were too strong. After all, we've only known each other a little under a year. We meet every once in a while, most of the time in places where I'm not even allowed to look at the way he's combed his hair that day. All I know is that there's something inside of me that wants to protect him in every way, and there's an even greater part that wants to me to be constantly protected by him. All of this shoots through my brain in the seconds I take to remove my body from contact with his. My arm immediately feels different because it's not touching his.

But I swear I can feel him smiling.

"Well, except for your hot dog," I toss in to break the tension my last comments created. "You put mayo on your hot dogs?"

"You do know I was born in Europe, right? They do that in Europe."

"No excuse," I joke. "And I think I'll pass out if you even bite into that."

He pushes the hot dog slowly into the trash bin next to the table and grabs his water bottle. I turn quickly and walk away, my hot dog squished in the grasps of my hand.

I don't turn around, but I pray he is watching me walk away.

***

Germany

I hear from the house that the party is in full swing before I even enter. I am wearing a black dress that falls to just below my knees with perfect slits up the sides. I requested the slits this time, sick of going to kick someone and realizing that I can't because my dress won't allow me to. The neckline dips down lower than I'd like it to, and same with my back, because now Keller has placed his giant hand somewhere on the skin of my back to lead me into the house, and I have to force myself to remember that I'm supposed to be married to this guy. At times like this, I really wish Dixon were around.

The house is tucked away in the middle of a large field. What would normally be an impressive front lawn is now covered with a variety of fine, expensive cars. We weave our way through the lot and I stare at the house the entire time, memorizing where windows and doors are located, finding the best places to run if I need to escape quickly.

One thing I like to take notice of is how odd another language can sound when everyone is speaking it in a large group. There's a certain way Americans sound together; Germans have such a rough language, I feel like I'm walking into such a completely foreign environment, even though I am mostly fluent in German. I am thinking about this as Keller squeezes my back, a gesture I'd welcome from a friend or a certain handler, but most definitely not from this guy.

"You ready, Katarina?" he whispers in my ear, a little too close for comfort, and I nod to agree with him. I pull a pair of thick black (but stylish, of course) glasses and slide them onto my head, hoping the way my hair is pulled back and the glasses will lend a little credence to my alias. Tonight, I am a collector, of sorts. I will feign interest in Kristenger's collection, and while Keller either distracts or just knocks Kristenger (or one of his cohorts) out, I will head to a vault that is kept behind one of the bookshelves, though I'm not sure which one it is. Once I do that, I'll be able to easily use my code reader to get inside the vault.

I am actually surprised at how easy this all seems. No faked fingerprints, no DNA, no code descrambler. For something so big, it all seems too simple.

I smile. I can handle simple.

The plan is to chat with randoms around the room for about an hour or so to let everyone in the place get a little bit drunk. The house is very large (and quite horribly decorated, I'll add) and seems to be the kind of place that is like a museum: if you turn too many corners, you're nowhere near where you started. But in the middle of this fine plan, I decide that Keller is driving me crazy, and I pray to God and who ever else will listen that I will never have to work with him again.

It is while he is rubbing the bare of my back or placing open-mouthed kisses on my shoulders and neck that I remind myself to keep my cool, remembering that Vaughn is somewhere near and can hear everything that's happening with the tiny bug I have attached to the inside of my dress strap.

"Yes," Keller speaks in his astonishingly fluent German, no American accent apparent whatsoever, "my wife is particularly interested in collecting old pieces of work. When we got married, I assumed she would just do the normal sort of wife things like spend my money all day on jewelry." Both Keller and the man he spoke to laugh in one of those ways that makes most of the people in a twenty-foot radius turn around to see who is being so loud. "Imagine my surprise when she wants to buy books! Books? Who is interested in such things? But my woman," he caresses my back for like the millionth time this evening and plants a wet one on my ear, "she just continues to surprise me every day."

"Have you seen Herr Kristenger's collection?" the man asks, and I realize that is my cue to feign incredible interest.

I cough gently, ready to spit out my German, hoping it sounds sufficient. "Collection?"

"Yes," the man replies, "it is only one of the best in the country."

I am somewhat afraid that this man will never lead me up to this great library, so I play around with him a little, "Well, I'd certainly like to see this collection that you boast as the best in the country. I have been in some of the best in the world and can hardly imagine one finer than," I pull this out of my ass, "the private collection I visited last summer in Milan."

He nods, obviously having no idea what I'm referring to, because even I don't, but he pretends he knows anyway. "Ah, yes. Well, let me say that Herr Kristenger only collects first editions from the most famous of authors. And he only," he grabs my hand, "wants the finest things." He then leans in and kisses my hand. I chide myself for not wearing gloves. "I will lead you and your husband there myself."

I smile charmingly, letting him hold my hand for much longer than I should have or wanted to. "Do show me."

We exit the room, heading through a maze of corridors, all covered in deep browns and bronzes with random statues placed in every available space. I try my hardest to keep track of where I am going so I can get out smoothly, and I think I have a pretty good idea of what's going on. We finally reach a massive library on the third floor, and I flash back to how it reminds me of the library in "The Beauty and the Beast."

I think of Walt Disney again. I wish Dixon were here. Keller's hand is burning a hole through my back, and I am literally counting the seconds until I can go somewhere and shower.

Both SD-6 and the CIA have confirmed that there are no cameras in the room, and I walk about candidly, thanking God for this easy mission. I always figured taking down SD-6 would involve this incredibly insane mission. I thought it would be some great maze of danger. The only danger here is that I would want to rip off the first edition copy of "The Count of Monte Cristo" that I see before me.

When the guy turns for a brief moment, I wink at Keller, and I walk away from both of them, making up random conversation, ready for Keller to punch him out half way through what I am saying, "I am interested to see if you have anything by John Donne or…" and he's out.

Keller and I run around the room, reaching between the books on each shelf to feel how dense the wall behind them is. After about a minute or two, Keller says, "Over here," in English, and I notice for the first time that he seems to have some sort of accent, but I can't quite identify it.

I run over next to him, removing all of the books from the shelf, then the thin piece of wall behind it. As I rip off the wall, I first notice the vault on the right. Then I blink and realize that I am staring into a camera on the exact left of it.

"Oh shit," Keller exclaims and immediately covers it with his hands. "You've got about a minute to do this or we die."

I fling the code reader out of my purse and start going to work on the numbers, trying not to take a second away from my concentration to realize that I should have seen this coming. This was all too easy.

"There," the jerk the safe open and pull out its only contents. The pages are old, ready to fall apart under the weakest of touches. I flip through them gently until I reach the page we need, and I read its contents aloud. "It looks like a formula." I read it as quick as I can, aware that only the CIA can hear me, and that I have already given them the information SD-6 had. Now only the CIA had the whole piece of the puzzle, because I certainly have no idea what all of this means together. When I am done reading, I turn to Keller, who has a gun pulled. I go to jump, thinking someone else has entered the room, when my new partner takes the butt of the gun and slaps it across my head so hard that I fall face first on the ground, the papers flying to my side.

He kneels down beside me, and I am only aware of him and the blood that I feel trickling down the side of my face. "I'm a double agent, sweetheart. Die Antwort thanks you for your time." I realize that his accent is slightly German–how could I be so stupid? Then he pushes my head back and kisses me deeply, his tongue sliding into my mouth and pushing itself harshly about. I flicker in disgust, but he holds me down with his grip. When his kiss is done, he jumps to his feet and runs out of the room, my papers under his arms.

The last thing I see is that copy of "The Count of Monte Cristo" I had set down earlier on the floor, and I am sickened by the irony of deception.

End of Part 1/5

"I'm a double agent, sweetheart. Die Antwort thanks you for your time." 

I blink. Oh Christ. Oh no no no no no. This is not happening.

Weiss looks at me, and for a second, we are both frozen. "She's in trouble," I mutter stupidly, pointing out the obvious.

He nods. "We're going to need some backup here," Weiss speaks into a microphone attached to his lapel, immediately sending things into action.

"All right," Devlin appears out of nowhere and stands very close in front of me. "This is the plan: SD-6 doesn't know that we're here, and they didn't send anyone besides Agents Bristow and Keller. Now that we know Keller is a double agent, I doubt it would hurt things to send one man in to find and recover Bristow–"

"I'll go," I spit into the middle of his sentence. He loses his train of thought and I reaffirm, "I'm going."

Devlin takes a quick look at Weiss, who I know is thinking something along the lines of, 'Good one, Mikey. If you mess this up, you're done for.' But he supports me anyway, actually saying, "He's already hooked up to the equipment. I'll have my eye on him."

Devlin looks back at me, shakes his head slowly and says, "Okay, fine. But–" he grabs my arm, more tightly than I'd like him to, "this is simple, Agent Vaughn. In and out. If there's any trouble, anything, you let us know immediately, and we'll send a backup team in there to recover the both of you."

I cut him off, "We don't have much time until she gets caught." I grab my jacket, fling it on, and jump out of the van, running across the front lawn with all of my strength. I take a quick survey of the doors and windows, eyeing the best possible escape routes.

Then I get stopped at the door. "Stop," a big guy says to me in thick German. "Who are you?"

"I'm Herr Schoeler's driver. He left his checkbook in the car; he will need it certainly." Wow, my German is such shit. I note to myself that I should work on it, but definitely later. "May I bring it to him?"

The man grunts, obviously more muscles than brains. "Yes. You have five minutes."

I smile appreciatively and head inside. My first instinct is to act normal, but I can almost hear the seconds ticking in my head until some security guards arrive and take Sydney. Then this would all be my fault. I have to get to her. Everything depends on it.

I approach some random person who is standing in the corner of the room, swishing a glass of champagne loosely in her grip. "Excuse me," I call to her, my broken German terrible and hard to understand.

"You're English?" she asks, and I thank God that she speaks something I understand.

"Yes. I was wondering if you know where the library here is? My man left some important items in his car, and I believe he will be needing them this evening." Ladies and Gentleman, I present Mr. Vaughn, master of formality and charm. Oh yeah, the charm bit. I smile at her, and she eyes me suspiciously.

After all, she looks about sixty years old. "Young man, I don't know who you are, but in that outfit," she points to my business suit, "you are anyone but a–"

Her words are cut off quickly as all of the guests are astounded by a rush of security guards, screaming jumbled German words together as they tumble through the rooms and hallways.

Get up, Syd. They're coming for you.

About a minute passes when I notice a guard coming down the stairs, gently pulling Sydney by his side. I figure that if she were in trouble, then he would be much more harsh with her. I pass people in the crowd until I am close enough that I can hear her talking to the guard. She is holding her head, stopping the blood that has fallen down her cheek.

"He was showing me his collection, when all of the sudden, I got knocked unconscious. I don't know who did it. I never saw."

I make a couple of assumptions here. One, that there was a camera by the vault and that the only way this lie can float would be if someone covered it as she worked on the combination. Two, the guy they are dragging down the stairs behind her is the guy who showed them the room, and that he has no idea she was even a participant in all of this.

I am praying that these things are true, and just as I take my glance off of the man behind her, my eyes meet with hers quickly, and we both freeze.

A second passes.

Oh God. What will happen?

"Thank Goodness!" she leaps out of the man's arms and rushes into mine. I am overwhelmed by everything as I hold her closely. I want to close my eyes, to let myself lapse into this feeling that I have never had before: holding her out in public for everyone to see. I resist the urge to do all of this as she continues, "I can't find Christian anywhere!" She begins to cry on my shoulder.

I think quickly, leaning into her and whispering in her ear, "They think I'm your driver."

I can almost feel her nod; I couldn't have told her at any better of a time because the guard came up beside us, grabbing my arm, "Who are you?"

"It's all right," she proposes, removing his arm from mine and stepping part of the way out of our embrace. "He's my driver."

"Take her directly to a hospital," the man says to me, and I shake my head, trying to avoid using my poor German language skills.

He is just about to say something else, when suddenly the house starts shaking. I cover Sydney with my body as we hit the floor with all of the other guests.

Someone screams something loudly, and I don't understand what it means. Only when Sydney's eyes meet mine do I realize that it's something big, that we need to get the hell out of there. "Bomb," she says, already pulling me to my feet.

I reach for my lapel and scream, "There's a bomb! Go while you can!"

In my earpiece, I can hear Weiss, "We'll wait for you."

"No no," I shout, hoping he can hear me over the screaming as we're lumped in a pack of people running from the house. "Too many people. I won't be able to find you."

The house shakes again, this time allowing chunks of the dark marble wall to tumble to the ground, hitting some people as they fall. The ceiling began to crackle, and I didn't want to even stop and think as I grabbed Sydney's hand and pulled her out one of the side door exits I had noticed earlier. She says nothing, and we run together across the lawn, away from the direction anyone else is heading.

My earpiece rings in my ear, then goes dead. I reach for it with my left hand and fling it to the ground, my right hand still firmly grasped in hers.

We stop at the edge of the field; she stares at me. "Where are we going?" Another explosion goes off, this one ripping a part of the building off and sending it flying into the air. We duck down, clearly far enough away, but still nervous of how far it could go.

"The town's not far from here," I say, tugging her hand again.

Then we're off, running through a small patch of forest at the edge of the lawn. When we hit the main road, we both turn at the same time, our hands breaking contact, only able to see the fire and smoke rising from behind the tree line. The house is completely out of site. We walk about a mile until we hit the small town nearby.

At a local tavern, I try repeatedly to reach Devlin or Weiss back in the truck. None of the CIA signals seem to be going through, and for a moment I wonder if they escaped before the house blew.

No. I can't think that.

"Nothing," I say to Sydney, her body leaning against the wall next to the pay phone I am using. From the looks of it, her head is still swelling, but by this point, she has cleared most of the blood off her face. She picks the bug I had given her from under the strap of her dress and lets it fall to the ground. "You were sent here with just Keller, right?"

"I can't believe he's a double agent…" she is lost in thought. I grab her arm gently and pull her towards me, looking for the answer to the question I asked. "Yeah, just us."

"When is your contact time with Sloane?"

"Um, six tomorrow morning. My flight's at eight." We look at each other, and suddenly the events of the night begin to fall away piece by piece. We have finally seemed to steady ourselves, only about a half an hour after the explosion. My hand feels like it weighs a million pounds, the only piece of me in contact with her. I am stupid to do it, but I allow my hand to roam freely up and down her arm. I don't know how I mean it, if it's out of reassurance or something else, but I do it anyway. She doesn't even blink, but her eyes are filled with something that wasn't there before. "What are we going to do?"

"We need a place to say for the night. I can't get in touch with Devlin and Sloane is going to flip when he finds out that Keller was his mole."

She nods, and for the first time, I get a good look at the gash on the side of her head. My free hand reaches up to cup her face, and I am overwhelmed that she is so close to me, that we are standing in public and I am looking at her like this. I can't stop the way I'm looking at her. She is stunning.

"Hey," someone calls out from behind us. We immediately jump, breaking apart.

Sydney turns around, pointing to herself. "Me?"

Her German is great. Wow. She never fails to impress me.

"Can I get anything for you?" It is the tavern owner calling at us from behind the bar.

She looks at me. "Do you have any money?"

"Only American." She sighs and I raise my shoulders. "Hey, I wasn't exactly planning for this to happen."

"How much do you have?"

I pull out my wallet. If my life were a cartoon, then little moths would have flown out. "Uh," I say sheepishly, "Twenty-three dollars."

She rips my money out of my hand, approaches the tavern owner and says, "What will this get me?"

The man smiles widely. "Either the biggest mug of the best beer we have on tap, or the smallest room we have."

"How much is a room?" she inquires, handing him all of the money.

His next sentence comes out too quick for me to understand, but I pick up the words "not enough" and "for a pretty lady."

Sydney thanks the man and comes over to me. "We've got ourselves a room." She hands out the key to me and for that moment on for the rest of the evening, I am the luckiest man in this room, in this country, and on this entire planet. Even though she is not my girlfriend, every guy in the room thinks she is. For a second, I imagine what it would be like if she were mine, if this were just another one of our spontaneous trips to a foreign country. I imagine what it would be like to share a room with her at night, to tell her everything I feel. Maybe even show her how I feel.

She grabs my hand, entwining her fingers with mine. "Let's go," she says.

Oh God, I'm in way over my head.

End of Part 2/5

I've decided that I'm in way over my head here. I'm doing things and I don't even know what's coming over me. And here I go, starting on this reasoning thing that I like to do with myself…

What am I doing? I've only known Vaughn for less than a year, and here I am, making these grand passes at him. And what's he doing? His green eyes seem a little shocked, but he's going along with everything I've done. I'll grab his hand; he'll hold it just as tight. I lean into him and he makes himself closer to me too. Maybe it's just my mind working too hard, maybe it's the injury I have just sustained, but I think we're both going insane by just looking at each other. And I realize that I now have the whole evening in front of me, and I am either going to leave here wishing I had done more or I am going to destroy everything between us.

There is no alternative.

There is no way that we could spend the night here together, wake up the next morning and have a wonderful new secret relationship that we must lovingly hide from the CIA, SD-6, all of my friends and all of his. We can't get together on a secret rendezvous. My life, as much as I would like it to be, can never be like the good stuff fiction is made out of. No matter what, things tonight won't end in any way I'd like.

He sits me on the end of the bed and runs into the bathroom, filling a towel with water, and then placing it on my forehead. It stings and I let him know this. "I'm sorry… sorry…" he whispers, blotting the rest of the blood from my forehead. I realize that my glasses have fallen off somewhere between the house and here, but I don't really care. My headache is subsiding, and it is now that I focus most of my energy on the fact that I just got severely screwed out of some good information.

He has finished with me, but is still sitting close, staring at me while I think. He tries to read my mind, "We got the formula, if you're wondering about that."

"Yeah, I know that. I just," I circled my hands in front of me, trying to think of the rest of my sentence, "how could I have worked with someone who was a double agent and not known it? How did I not notice his accent? Or the way he…" I froze. Oh God. That disgusting maggot kissed me, and I mean, he really, really kissed me. I suddenly want to bolt from the bed and scrub my body with something rough. Scrub until I bleed. Eww.

"He what?" Vaughn is very close next to me on this bed. Very close. Our legs and arms are sharing heat, and I know it's been a long time since I've sat like this with anyone. Will didn't count; I was drunk. And that kiss was unforgivably bad. It meant nothing. Vaughn makes me feel like I'm seventeen years old again, sitting next to my crush on the school bus, unable to think of anything but how close we're sitting. When do we get to this point in our lives where all that's important is sex? Sex sex sex. God. I am suddenly overwhelmed at how good it feels to just have someone next to me, how magical it is to hold someone's hand or look into that person's eyes.

I flash my glance over at him, and we are locked into looking at each other.

Okay, I never completely discounted sex all together.

Gah! Did I just think that?

"Hey," he rubs my arm with his and I realize that I still haven't answered his question.

"He um," I am still using my hands to talk, "did something not so nice." Vaughn stares at me. Why did I ever get myself into this? "He had been mistreating me all evening, like…" I cannot believe I'm saying this. "…grabbing me in the wrong places and stuff. Going above and beyond, I guess. And then he kissed me after he knocked me down, and it was just… horrible. It was horrible." I stare down in my lap and realize that he is probably taking this as a sign to back away from me, that I didn't like it when the agents I work with get close to me. I don't know why, but I reach out for his hand. His grip is strong and his skin is so soft and warm, I could lose all control of myself just by the touch of this one hand of his. "I messed this all up. This is all my fault."

"No no," he leans in closer to me now, closer than he has ever been, and we sit there, his right arm wrapped around me, his left hand mixed up with both of mine. "Never ever say that. Never, okay? How could you have known?"

"His accent? The way he was acting? Lots of things."

"You just named two things. That's not a lot."

How can he be so complacent? No, okay, he was not being like that. He was being…

There are those eyes again. I'm going to mess everything up…

… He was being perfect.

I decide to take a chance. I know I'm going to regret this. I make my eye contact more forceful, and for a second he looks confused, like he doesn't know what to do but to keep looking at me too.

I want to kiss him. No, scratch that. We are going to kiss tonight.

He seems to have some sort of brain cells left that are working as I lean towards him. He is reaching for words of some sort. "You did nothing wrong," he says, his mouth a few inches from mine.

I want to cry. I am so confused; I don't know what I'm doing. I could stand up, walk away, and make him sleep on the floor. Then we'd be nothing. We would be awkward meetings, uncomfortable glances. Even if SD-6 did fall, I'm sure that if I scared him away tonight that we would never be able to feel this close again. But if I go ahead, we can make nothing of it. We will have this one night, then nothing more.

I decide morning is the enemy as I lean in closer to him. My lips are on top of his now, neither one of us moving. All I can hear is our mixed breathing, coming in and out quickly. Then everything slows down and I take a second to memorize the way we are, where we are touching, the way he smells, and how those worry lines in his forehead have all but disappeared. We calm to each other under this spell, and I know there is no turning back.

He pushes forward first, breaking the last nerves I had intact, and kisses me sweetly, reminding me of my first taste of kissing back when I was fourteen, hidden behind a grocery market three blocks from my house. I remember how everything in my brain went numb and I could only feel in the places where our bodies touched.

This is exactly like that.

Then I lean in, and our tongues meet for the first time. Suddenly the numbness goes away, and my entire body explodes in something I can hardly describe, but it's one of my favorite feelings in the world. His arm, still wrapped around me, pulls me in closer, and the kiss ignites a fire under us that neither of knew we had. I can't have enough of him, and we are both pushing and pulling into each other, rocking gently on the end of the bed, as we fight for the best angle for the kiss. I am intoxicated by him; my mouth is completely wet, something I usually get embarrassed by, but I notice that his is too, and neither one of us want to stop to fix anything.

He is still holding my hand, but we finally break them apart to grab each other in more places. I am now sliding my arms up his jacket sleeves, across his shoulders and finally resting them in his hair. He is doing the same, making me shiver as he covers my cold bare back with his warm hands. The difference in temperature makes my whole body shake under his touch and I am absolutely freaking out. This is wonderful, and I don't want it to end.

Ever.

Still sitting next to me, he pushes one strap of my dress down, leaving my mouth for the first time to kiss his way down my neck and across my shoulder. He is going so slow I could die, but I am almost buzzing with the way he is treating me. Never have I had someone be so cautious with me; I felt like one of those giant boxes you get in the mail, "Handle with care" scribbled with huge black letters on the side of it.

And I'm loving it completely.

I slide his jacket off, removing his shirt with frustrated grasps at the tiny buttons. I get as far as unbuttoning it and pulling it out of his pants before he lies me down and gently stays above me. My arms wrap around his body under his shirt and we continue, kissing slowly and deeply, allowing our tongues to taste new parts of each other every few minutes, but always returning back to where it all began.

I run my hands over his sides slowly and his whole body shakes uncontrollably. He breaks the kiss, "Oh my God… tickles…" he is smiling the biggest and most beautiful smile I have ever seen on a man, and I feel for a second that all of this will somehow turn out all right. That everything may just end okay after all.

We laugh for another few minutes or so, nipping and tickling everything we can, until we are completely lumped together on the mattress, legs and arms intertwined in the oddest of ways. We stop for a second, letting the laughter roll off of us. I stare into his eyes, and our smiles fade quickly. My heart races. I can think of and hear nothing but our breathing.

He reaches to my face with his hand, brushing my face with his palm as if there was a piece of hair there, but there wasn't. We stare for another few seconds, both of us feeling scared as hell.

"No matter what happens…" I trail off, not even knowing where I wanted to go with that comment when I started it.

He blinks, as if he's had the perfect answer for the end of that statement his whole life and has just been waiting for someone to start it. "… the sun will still rise tomorrow."

He means that we'll still be the same, but for the first time in his life, he couldn't have been more wrong.

He leans in to kiss me again, and this time everything is quick and heated. We press on, removing clothes as quick as humanly possible, slowing only to take our time on the most important of areas. I am scared to death as I crawl under the covers with him. My hair is spread across the pillow in a messy pile, but that doesn't concern me. He hovers above me, his hands locked in mine where they are rested on either side of my head. We look at each other in silence again, our breathing overwhelming us. We stare until we both reach this level of sanity. My eyes are still locked with his as he presses inside me, and all of the fear goes away.

For the rest of the night, I am the happiest I have been in the past year of my life.

We smile, then explode with everything that's been stored in us since for what feels like our whole lives. Nothing matters anymore when we are together like this, and my mind drifts into this place where I have never been before: everything is beautiful and all of the pain is gone.

End of Part 3/5

The touches of sunlight fall over the bed as daytime comes once again. I promised her that we would still be the same, but I feel completely different already. I want to tell her that I love her, that everything's going to be perfect. Sure, we'll have to meet in secret, but we're already risking our lives by stepping out of our front doors each morning. And how can you stop love?

I blink, furiously rubbing the sleepies out of my eyes. Wait. I think I rubbed too hard. I blink a few more times and realize that I have not blinked too hard at all; she is gone.

I sit up in the bed, the covers falling from my bare chest. I don't hear her anywhere in the room, not in the bathroom, not anywhere. Every reminder of her is gone and I know immediately that I've let her dance right out of my life.

Now nothing will be the same.

I look at the clock; it is 7:30. She has already contacted Sloane and is just about to board her plane back home. And here I am, in the same bed she left me in.

I slip from under the covers, pulling my clothes on quickly, trying to forget what just happened. No no, wait, this can't go like this. I have to work with her; I have to remain beside her. I can't just up and do anything rash, just because I'm feeling like I am.

I'm feeling like I don't know who I am or what I let myself do.

I realize that from now on, everything is going to be different. That every look between us won't just end in our typical glass wall of tension. Look, but don't touch. We've gone way past that now, but I see that it's up to me to make sure we don't lose what we have left. 

If I'm half the man I want to be for her, I'll leave all of this right here.

I close the door gently so I don't wake the other guests, and I make my way into town, trying to figure out some way to get in touch with Devlin before he really starts wondering what I've been up to.

I can control everything but him.

I can do this.

***

It happened two nights ago. Every time I think of it, I push it far to the back of my brain.

My gold coin flips rapidly between my fingers as I sit in my desk. Much to my chagrin, Haladki enters my office, wearing one of his typical shit eating grins. I want to hit him already, and he hasn't even said anything yet.

In fact, he says nothing for a while, he just stands there and stares at me.

"Can I help you?"

"No, no. I was just staring at the only guy around here who can keep on making the same mistake over and over again."

I say nothing.

"And, uh, speaking of mistakes," he edges his way further into my office, "care to share where you and Agent Bristow went missing to for eight hours the other night, Agent Vaughn?"

I shoot out of my chair, leaning across my desk. The coin flips randomly and lands tails up on my desk. "Fuck off."

"Oh, I see, I see," Haladki backs away from me just as Weiss appears in my doorway. "By the way, is that a hickey on your neck?" He smiles and leaves quickly, knowing that if another couple of seconds had passed, I would have kicked the living shit out of him.

I flop back into my seat, "I really really hate that guy." I rub the lines in my forehead, knowing I must look like crap considering I haven't slept since that night. Or, actually, I haven't slept since the night before that night.

"Yeah," Weiss sits down across from me. "Don't worry about him. Everything is fine, buddy. We figured out the formula and were able to relay it to a team. SD-6 never got a hold of any of the coordinates from the book."

"So what does this mean?" I am suddenly hopeful. Devlin had implied that this information was huge, big enough to bring down SD-6, if it was what he thought it was. This could mean that everything would be fine between Sydney and I.

"Nothing," Weiss says, leaning back in the chair. "It wasn't what Devlin had hoped for." I must have looked more than disappointed, because Weiss leaned forward and knocked on my desk a couple of times, "Hey, don't worry. We're closer than we've ever been."

I nod and let him leave the room without saying anything further. He is my best friend, but he can never know. It's hard enough having to relive that night every time I close my eyes.

End of Part 4/5

I sit carelessly at my coffee table, blowing on the top of my fresh coffee, the steam flying back and making my face hot. Francie is talking to me about something, and I think I'm a horrible person, because I can't concentrate on anything that she has said. Actually, I haven't been able to concentrate on anything since I walked out of that room two nights ago. It is now the second morning that I have had to deal with my actions, the thought that I still haven't seen him since it happened wagging its finger at me from the back of my brain like my mother used to do.

"So are you coming?" Francie calls from her bedroom where she is dressing for work.

I don't have class until noon. I fully plan on not moving until exactly a half an hour before that class begins.

I shake my head, "I'm sorry. Where?"

She enters the room, a stunning business suit on, her hair and makeup fully done. She is in the middle of putting an earring in. "To see Charlie tonight!"

I smile gently at her, "Of course."

"You didn't forget, did you?" She charges that priceless Francie grin at me, and I shake my head quickly.

"No, I didn't. I'm totally there."

"All right," she pats her outfit, "how do I look?"

"Awesome, girl," I offer her, and she jumps up and down a couple of times.

"I just bought this yesterday and let me tell ya, it was worth every penny for this beautifully overpriced suit! I feel so business-like."

I laugh at her enthusiasm when the doorbell rings. She flies to the door– I guess it's Will–but I hear Francie say loudly, "Oh, my God! Who are these for? Okay, thank you! Have a great day!"

I remove myself from my chair, ambling across the living room in my pajamas.

"Look at what you got!" She shoves a huge wrapped bouquet in my arms.

I am immediately confused. Okay, I've just received flowers. Why? And who are they from? I rip open the protective wrapping and am dazzled by what are at least a dozen of the prettiest red, pink, and white roses I have ever seen. I am overwhelmed by their fresh scent.

"Who are they from? Who are they from?" Francie looks like she's about to jump out of her skin with excitement. 

I hand her the roses and remove the card. Please, God, don't let these be from Will.

The note is small, written in the quick handwriting that I recognize as coming from someone who's left-handed. Written on the front side: "There will be a time when we both can stay…"

I flip over the card. On the back: "… You should have seen that sunrise."

I want to break down and cry. I remember Francie is standing right next to me, anxious for a reply. If I started bawling, I would have to lie even more to her, and I already hate the fact that I haven't been able to share any of this with her. "I don't know… I don't know who they're from."

She smells the roses once more before handing them back to me. "Somebody's got a secret admirer." She kisses me on the cheek, "I'll see ya tonight. And make sure you put those in some water!"

Francie is gone, and I can't resist the huge smile that fills my face.

Maybe he was more right than I thought. Maybe everything will be fine.

All we need is time.

End

*******

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! This is my first post of anything, so any feedback would be greatly and very much loved!!!!!


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